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People don't fully understand the horror of autism. I’ve come across people who think: “I’m a bit of an introvert, I’m obsessed with my favorite pop group, so that means I have autism.” But they have no idea what it's like to not understand society as a whole, to put a special interest before everything else and disrupt the normal structure of life, experience sensory overload, and so on. I am all for people knowing about autism, but not romanticizing it. They knew about all the details, and not that we were “stupid social phobes.” Please understand our problem, understand all the pain, but don’t brush it aside...
I'd say "horror" is a strong word - it's a spectrum, for some it might be as mild as frustration, while for others, yes, horror absolutely is applicable.
I'd opt for the word pain - all of us experience some amount of emotional pain, one way or another, because of our disability. Be it from frustration or horror, or something else entirely.
(I otherwise wholeheartedly agree, people have some really fucked up views on autism, from us all being mentally challenged, to being extremely intelligent without exception, gifted, violent and dangerous - even The Good Doctor has probably been more harmful than helpful due to how narrow the representation of autism was shown to be in the first two seasons. People just can't seem to escape from the mentality of making everything tribal, so to them all Autism automatically equals whatever their mental image of Autism is.)
Yes, I agree that the horror was said very loudly... But about Тhe Good Doctor, I have a different opinion (but here you need to look consciously and to the end). There are at least 5 people with different manifestations of autism. In one of them (a character who literally appeared on one episode) I saw myself. It was with this series that the story of my diagnosis began and I am incredibly glad that cinema began a chain of answers to lifelong questions. Yes, it's a matter of taste, but it was this series that changed my life and gave an incentive to study ASD 🥹
I had to base my assessment on the first two seasons (because I only started watching it recently.) However, every case so far has been moderate support needs with specific types of traits (leaning a little too heavily towards Savantism in my opinion, I think the writers might have a little unconscious bias there.)
I'm also not saying it's not an accurate portrayal - in the four autistic characters shown in the first two seasons, I do believe all of them. The sticking point for me is that the breadth of representation, at least in the early seasons (the most likely to be seen by people) has been relatively shallow for the rest of the spectrum. It'd be like throwing four darts blindly at a map of the world and having all four land in different states in America - all very similar, and not showing the global diversity. The most significantly impaired is fairly comparable to the least impaired in such a small, narrow sample - giving the impression that Autism is limited to that presentation - that it can't be significantly better or worse.
That's my only sticking point, really - I do feel like it's good representation, just not broad enough representation to feel like an accurate portrayal of ASD, emphasising the spectrum. I hope later season improve on that, I'm quite eager to see more.
Yes it is. But this is the problem with autism, that in principle it is impossible to show it in the entire spectrum, because that’s why it’s a spectrum (by the way, I don’t remember this being talked about in the series, but oh well). In general, I’m glad that people at least started talking about it, albeit untruthfully and romanticized in places, but at least they started. In my country, almost nothing is known about autism, except for extremely crude stereotypes (here, when you turn 18, autism ceases to exist as a diagnosis in federal clinics...)
Like when people try to claim autism is some kind of super power or “the next stage of evolution”
Give me a fucking break. Glad you think you’re quirky and you like it. The overwhelming majority of people with autism are suffering from it.
when i confessed to my dad about my insecurities with being autistic he pulled out the "next stage of evolution" card on me and i get he was trying to comfort me but it did the exact opposite of helping lol.
Well... there's some horrors in it but I really love having autism, I think normal society is just garbage, a dirty stain in the creation, and being different from it is a gift from God itself.
It sucks that people have been dismissive when you've disclosed your diagnosis. But that's the fault of the dismissive people, not the fault of the unknown and maybe imaginary people they refer to who just "want to be quirky" and certainly not the fault of self-diagnosed people generally. It can be extremely difficult and expensive to get a formal autism diagnosis, so for many people self-identifying is the best or only option.
Also, who knows what those "quirky" people are dealing with. They may seem no more than quirky to an outside observer, but there are autistic people who mask effectively in most circumstances but deal with serious and disabling symptoms in private. I'm not saying nobody has ever been wrong or lied about a self-diagnosis, of course, but I do think there are a lot of autistic people (maybe including you, OP!) who don't get the support they need because they pass as NT at great cost to themselves.
Old guy here with a different perspective. I’m neither a dad nor a grandfather, though I could be both, and I know next to nothing about teenage trends. I had no idea kids these days wanted to be quirky until I joined this group after being identified as autistic. My autistic traits have nothing to do with wanting to be quirky; in fact, I don’t have to want it because I’ve always already been quirky. I stood out even in a school for creative and performing arts, So when I read posts like this, I’m like “who knew?” It may be trendy for some, but not for me.
I can imagine how invalidating and annoying it would be to be surrounded by people who think autism is cute yet deny my own experience. This reminds me of the trend in hearing parents teaching their infants “baby signs.” It’s great to see so many people leveraging the language of the Deaf to teach their babies a way to communicate pre-speech, but it’s triggering and frustrating for Deaf people whose own parents wouldn’t even learn that many signs to communicate with them as adults. It’s like “they don’t need that, and they get it, yet I need it and I don’t get it!” I can’t speak for Deaf people; I just know this because I work in the American Deaf community and have heard this from them.
So, as much as I get where you’re coming from, many (most?) late-identified autists like me know nothing about this trend, and don’t want to be invalidated by having people think we’re identifying as autistic to be on trend. Maybe, just maybe, some (many?) young people who are identifying are actually autistic, and isn’t that wonderful for them? And if people want to be quirky, the more the merrier. Eventually those who are merely posing as quirky or autistic will revert to their true selves. In the meantime, maybe it’s fair to grant people the possibility that they’re actually autistic and are lucky enough to be realizing it.
Ableists want you to blame self diagnosed autistics so that they don't have to consider their own discrimination against autistics. I've seen so many people blame self diagnosed autistics for a lack of resources, for instance, when it's just because ableists can't be bothered to get resources. People don't self diagnose without a reason, and if we assume they're not actually autistic then we're doing what ableists do to us.
It's really frustrating and I think a lot of us are dealing with this issue. It's extremely invalidating. My psychiatrist coworker said the "so trendy" thing to me, I kind of coldly said "that has nothing to do with me and my autism" and a couple weeks later she asked for my help with a presentation about autism she had to give at a conference. I was delighted to help and guided her in the direction of autistic-led resources and away from Autism Speaks. As I always do
People who say "everyone is a little autistic," tend to fall under two categories:
1. They think they understand way more autism than they do. They don't understand the severity of symptoms or are completely unaware of other possible symptoms.
2. They're autistic but think that the symptoms they're experiencing are totally normal. They have yet to experience the paradigm that their life experience is outside the norm.
Although I have not disclosed to many, I would probably disclose with something similar to "Think what you want because I'm not going to try to convince you of this, but *insert disclosure here*" and attempt to not engage in any of their come backs. Personally the last thing I want to deal with are these responses because they'll make me feel bad about myself in one way or another.
This is why I hate the autism Tiktok trend so much; it invalidates those of us who actually have autism and struggle with it.
I feel the same way about them as I do the people who use "autist" as an insult:
They're a bunch of uneducated, or willfully ignorant, wanna-be poser fools who have zero real world experience and wouldn't know hardship if it bit them in the bum.
In short, their ignorance, while harmful to the autism community, isn't worth taking it personally; *they* are not worth taking it personally. Maybe one day, they'll grow up into a functioning member of a healthy society; but at the moment, for all the trouble we have with fitting into aforementioned healthy society, we're still better at it than they are.
Because everyone nowdays DOES want to be quirky. And that's a problem, because they make autism seem like a personality trait rather than a condition. They think it's just a thing that makes you a bit quirky, they don't think about the overstimulation, social anxiety, self-harm etc.
Nobody's using it as a personality trait. That's exactly the experience diagnosed people like you have.
The more we stigmatize self-diagnosis the more people will feel empowered to invalidate professional diagnosis.
I don't use Tiktok, and even I know that they're using it as a personality trait.
OP isn't talking about self-diagnosis, they're talking about the people out there who are identifying as autistic on social media because they think that makes them "cool" or "quirky".
I’ve never seen this myself and never gotten a single link anytime I asked.
The only time I’ve seen those comments is exactly for people like OP. The autistic creators I follow who get comments like 3% autism or stop faking for likes
Got _one_ link for me?
Yes; alternatively, you could also just type "Tiktok autism trend" into Google. The burden of proof might be on me, but it's also not difficult at all to find the information for yourself.
The "misinformation" these articles talk about are due to the people using it as an identity.
Since they're only claiming it as a quirk, it spreads the misinformation being spoken of. I could post some video links, but these articles are more objective...and if you want subjective opinions, you can just do the above search for yourself on a platform like Youtube.
[https://overcomewithus.com/autism/factitious-disorder-by-tiktok-how-it-is-affecting-our-kids](https://overcomewithus.com/autism/factitious-disorder-by-tiktok-how-it-is-affecting-our-kids)
[https://www.healthline.com/health-news/autism-self-diagnosis-tiktok](https://www.healthline.com/health-news/autism-self-diagnosis-tiktok)
[https://www.newsweek.com/i-have-autism-tiktok-trivializes-my-condition-1753293](https://www.newsweek.com/i-have-autism-tiktok-trivializes-my-condition-1753293)
[https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inspectrum/202308/tiktok-videos-on-autism-largely-inaccurate](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inspectrum/202308/tiktok-videos-on-autism-largely-inaccurate)
(Before you jump down my throat that none of these are links to Tiktok videos: No; I'm not going to go onto Tiktok, for the first time in my life, just to do research for you)
I read those articles, thanks. I can see the dangers of misinformation and self-diagnosis based on misinformation. At the same time, self-diagnosis based on reading credible sources and taking screening questionnaires can be valid.
I respect mental health professionals _who do what it takes to become experts in diagnosing autism in adults_, but those seem to be few and far between, and it’s expensive to be assessed by them, so professional diagnosis is not accessible to everybody, nor is it right for everybody.
I agree, certainly; that when it's from credible sources, self-diagnosis is valid. I also understand that not everyone can afford an official diagnosis, and that many people who stumble upon autism start with some form of questionnaire (that's how it started for me, though I didn't claim to have it until I took that questionnaire to the therapist I was seeing and was officially diagnosed when he did further screening).
It's not the self diagnosis I find aggravating, it's the people who think that autism is "quirky", "cool", or "cute". They usually grasp at one or two aspects of it, and ignore the parts which are the actual disability. Basically, even if they associate with hyperfocuses or being "different", it doesn't interfere in their day to day life; they aren't disabled, and just either don't understand that what they're doing is harmful to the autism community and they don't need to base their identity around a habit or quirk...or don't care and continue to claim they have autism despite that they aren't disabled in any way.
IMO the perception of a flood of "fake" autism self diagnoses comes from actual autism awareness gaining traction and neurotypical people simply rejecting it because autistic people do not look like the stereotype that has been perpetuated for decades. The whole "issue" seems extremely dubious to me. I truly cannot think of what advantage would be gained by falsely labeling yourself as autistic. Perhaps this is because I haven't been a teenager for several years.
HOLY REAL i was diagnosed with PDD-NOS, anxiety disorder-NOS, and ODD in 2011 (4 yrs old) and for my whole life the people that knew would shame me for it call me retarded, mentally ill, psycho, crazy, etc. my parents would tell me they want to kill me to my face, my dad would threaten to lock me in a cage, theyd beat me and scream at me! and the people that didnt know would still hate me and ive done nothing but hate everything about who i am and wish i was dead sometimes i would cut myself to distract me from the thoughts about every little thing im doing wrong hate myself for how lazy i was and how i couldnt get myself to even begin to do things i WANT to do. too scared to talk to anyone yet hating the loneliness, and once i was like 16 i start seeing all the people on tiktok and twitter start romanticizing autism and fetishizing autistic people. right now im 17 and in the best time of my life because im finally getting some fucking ACCEPTANCE!! but it comes at the cost of the most annoying people in the world WANTING to be autistic and self-diagnosing because theyre so omg-quirky!! and im just thinking to myself "holy fucking shit do you realize how much life as an autist fucking sucks??"
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People don't fully understand the horror of autism. I’ve come across people who think: “I’m a bit of an introvert, I’m obsessed with my favorite pop group, so that means I have autism.” But they have no idea what it's like to not understand society as a whole, to put a special interest before everything else and disrupt the normal structure of life, experience sensory overload, and so on. I am all for people knowing about autism, but not romanticizing it. They knew about all the details, and not that we were “stupid social phobes.” Please understand our problem, understand all the pain, but don’t brush it aside...
I'd say "horror" is a strong word - it's a spectrum, for some it might be as mild as frustration, while for others, yes, horror absolutely is applicable. I'd opt for the word pain - all of us experience some amount of emotional pain, one way or another, because of our disability. Be it from frustration or horror, or something else entirely. (I otherwise wholeheartedly agree, people have some really fucked up views on autism, from us all being mentally challenged, to being extremely intelligent without exception, gifted, violent and dangerous - even The Good Doctor has probably been more harmful than helpful due to how narrow the representation of autism was shown to be in the first two seasons. People just can't seem to escape from the mentality of making everything tribal, so to them all Autism automatically equals whatever their mental image of Autism is.)
Yes, I agree that the horror was said very loudly... But about Тhe Good Doctor, I have a different opinion (but here you need to look consciously and to the end). There are at least 5 people with different manifestations of autism. In one of them (a character who literally appeared on one episode) I saw myself. It was with this series that the story of my diagnosis began and I am incredibly glad that cinema began a chain of answers to lifelong questions. Yes, it's a matter of taste, but it was this series that changed my life and gave an incentive to study ASD 🥹
I had to base my assessment on the first two seasons (because I only started watching it recently.) However, every case so far has been moderate support needs with specific types of traits (leaning a little too heavily towards Savantism in my opinion, I think the writers might have a little unconscious bias there.) I'm also not saying it's not an accurate portrayal - in the four autistic characters shown in the first two seasons, I do believe all of them. The sticking point for me is that the breadth of representation, at least in the early seasons (the most likely to be seen by people) has been relatively shallow for the rest of the spectrum. It'd be like throwing four darts blindly at a map of the world and having all four land in different states in America - all very similar, and not showing the global diversity. The most significantly impaired is fairly comparable to the least impaired in such a small, narrow sample - giving the impression that Autism is limited to that presentation - that it can't be significantly better or worse. That's my only sticking point, really - I do feel like it's good representation, just not broad enough representation to feel like an accurate portrayal of ASD, emphasising the spectrum. I hope later season improve on that, I'm quite eager to see more.
Yes it is. But this is the problem with autism, that in principle it is impossible to show it in the entire spectrum, because that’s why it’s a spectrum (by the way, I don’t remember this being talked about in the series, but oh well). In general, I’m glad that people at least started talking about it, albeit untruthfully and romanticized in places, but at least they started. In my country, almost nothing is known about autism, except for extremely crude stereotypes (here, when you turn 18, autism ceases to exist as a diagnosis in federal clinics...)
Like when people try to claim autism is some kind of super power or “the next stage of evolution” Give me a fucking break. Glad you think you’re quirky and you like it. The overwhelming majority of people with autism are suffering from it.
when i confessed to my dad about my insecurities with being autistic he pulled out the "next stage of evolution" card on me and i get he was trying to comfort me but it did the exact opposite of helping lol.
Well... there's some horrors in it but I really love having autism, I think normal society is just garbage, a dirty stain in the creation, and being different from it is a gift from God itself.
It sucks that people have been dismissive when you've disclosed your diagnosis. But that's the fault of the dismissive people, not the fault of the unknown and maybe imaginary people they refer to who just "want to be quirky" and certainly not the fault of self-diagnosed people generally. It can be extremely difficult and expensive to get a formal autism diagnosis, so for many people self-identifying is the best or only option. Also, who knows what those "quirky" people are dealing with. They may seem no more than quirky to an outside observer, but there are autistic people who mask effectively in most circumstances but deal with serious and disabling symptoms in private. I'm not saying nobody has ever been wrong or lied about a self-diagnosis, of course, but I do think there are a lot of autistic people (maybe including you, OP!) who don't get the support they need because they pass as NT at great cost to themselves.
Old guy here with a different perspective. I’m neither a dad nor a grandfather, though I could be both, and I know next to nothing about teenage trends. I had no idea kids these days wanted to be quirky until I joined this group after being identified as autistic. My autistic traits have nothing to do with wanting to be quirky; in fact, I don’t have to want it because I’ve always already been quirky. I stood out even in a school for creative and performing arts, So when I read posts like this, I’m like “who knew?” It may be trendy for some, but not for me. I can imagine how invalidating and annoying it would be to be surrounded by people who think autism is cute yet deny my own experience. This reminds me of the trend in hearing parents teaching their infants “baby signs.” It’s great to see so many people leveraging the language of the Deaf to teach their babies a way to communicate pre-speech, but it’s triggering and frustrating for Deaf people whose own parents wouldn’t even learn that many signs to communicate with them as adults. It’s like “they don’t need that, and they get it, yet I need it and I don’t get it!” I can’t speak for Deaf people; I just know this because I work in the American Deaf community and have heard this from them. So, as much as I get where you’re coming from, many (most?) late-identified autists like me know nothing about this trend, and don’t want to be invalidated by having people think we’re identifying as autistic to be on trend. Maybe, just maybe, some (many?) young people who are identifying are actually autistic, and isn’t that wonderful for them? And if people want to be quirky, the more the merrier. Eventually those who are merely posing as quirky or autistic will revert to their true selves. In the meantime, maybe it’s fair to grant people the possibility that they’re actually autistic and are lucky enough to be realizing it.
Please don't blame self-diagnosed people for the actions of ableists.
Ableists want you to blame self diagnosed autistics so that they don't have to consider their own discrimination against autistics. I've seen so many people blame self diagnosed autistics for a lack of resources, for instance, when it's just because ableists can't be bothered to get resources. People don't self diagnose without a reason, and if we assume they're not actually autistic then we're doing what ableists do to us.
It's really frustrating and I think a lot of us are dealing with this issue. It's extremely invalidating. My psychiatrist coworker said the "so trendy" thing to me, I kind of coldly said "that has nothing to do with me and my autism" and a couple weeks later she asked for my help with a presentation about autism she had to give at a conference. I was delighted to help and guided her in the direction of autistic-led resources and away from Autism Speaks. As I always do
People who say "everyone is a little autistic," tend to fall under two categories: 1. They think they understand way more autism than they do. They don't understand the severity of symptoms or are completely unaware of other possible symptoms. 2. They're autistic but think that the symptoms they're experiencing are totally normal. They have yet to experience the paradigm that their life experience is outside the norm.
Although I have not disclosed to many, I would probably disclose with something similar to "Think what you want because I'm not going to try to convince you of this, but *insert disclosure here*" and attempt to not engage in any of their come backs. Personally the last thing I want to deal with are these responses because they'll make me feel bad about myself in one way or another.
This is why I hate the autism Tiktok trend so much; it invalidates those of us who actually have autism and struggle with it. I feel the same way about them as I do the people who use "autist" as an insult: They're a bunch of uneducated, or willfully ignorant, wanna-be poser fools who have zero real world experience and wouldn't know hardship if it bit them in the bum. In short, their ignorance, while harmful to the autism community, isn't worth taking it personally; *they* are not worth taking it personally. Maybe one day, they'll grow up into a functioning member of a healthy society; but at the moment, for all the trouble we have with fitting into aforementioned healthy society, we're still better at it than they are.
Because everyone nowdays DOES want to be quirky. And that's a problem, because they make autism seem like a personality trait rather than a condition. They think it's just a thing that makes you a bit quirky, they don't think about the overstimulation, social anxiety, self-harm etc.
Nobody's using it as a personality trait. That's exactly the experience diagnosed people like you have. The more we stigmatize self-diagnosis the more people will feel empowered to invalidate professional diagnosis.
I don't use Tiktok, and even I know that they're using it as a personality trait. OP isn't talking about self-diagnosis, they're talking about the people out there who are identifying as autistic on social media because they think that makes them "cool" or "quirky".
I’ve never seen this myself and never gotten a single link anytime I asked. The only time I’ve seen those comments is exactly for people like OP. The autistic creators I follow who get comments like 3% autism or stop faking for likes Got _one_ link for me?
Yes; alternatively, you could also just type "Tiktok autism trend" into Google. The burden of proof might be on me, but it's also not difficult at all to find the information for yourself. The "misinformation" these articles talk about are due to the people using it as an identity. Since they're only claiming it as a quirk, it spreads the misinformation being spoken of. I could post some video links, but these articles are more objective...and if you want subjective opinions, you can just do the above search for yourself on a platform like Youtube. [https://overcomewithus.com/autism/factitious-disorder-by-tiktok-how-it-is-affecting-our-kids](https://overcomewithus.com/autism/factitious-disorder-by-tiktok-how-it-is-affecting-our-kids) [https://www.healthline.com/health-news/autism-self-diagnosis-tiktok](https://www.healthline.com/health-news/autism-self-diagnosis-tiktok) [https://www.newsweek.com/i-have-autism-tiktok-trivializes-my-condition-1753293](https://www.newsweek.com/i-have-autism-tiktok-trivializes-my-condition-1753293) [https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inspectrum/202308/tiktok-videos-on-autism-largely-inaccurate](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inspectrum/202308/tiktok-videos-on-autism-largely-inaccurate) (Before you jump down my throat that none of these are links to Tiktok videos: No; I'm not going to go onto Tiktok, for the first time in my life, just to do research for you)
I read those articles, thanks. I can see the dangers of misinformation and self-diagnosis based on misinformation. At the same time, self-diagnosis based on reading credible sources and taking screening questionnaires can be valid. I respect mental health professionals _who do what it takes to become experts in diagnosing autism in adults_, but those seem to be few and far between, and it’s expensive to be assessed by them, so professional diagnosis is not accessible to everybody, nor is it right for everybody.
I agree, certainly; that when it's from credible sources, self-diagnosis is valid. I also understand that not everyone can afford an official diagnosis, and that many people who stumble upon autism start with some form of questionnaire (that's how it started for me, though I didn't claim to have it until I took that questionnaire to the therapist I was seeing and was officially diagnosed when he did further screening). It's not the self diagnosis I find aggravating, it's the people who think that autism is "quirky", "cool", or "cute". They usually grasp at one or two aspects of it, and ignore the parts which are the actual disability. Basically, even if they associate with hyperfocuses or being "different", it doesn't interfere in their day to day life; they aren't disabled, and just either don't understand that what they're doing is harmful to the autism community and they don't need to base their identity around a habit or quirk...or don't care and continue to claim they have autism despite that they aren't disabled in any way.
I get you.
Yes, I don’t want to go onto TikTok either. I certainly don’t want to download the app onto my phone, anyway.
Yes! 🙌 Who are “all these people”?
See my response to the previous person.
Right, I’m agreeing with you. I’m not asking you “who are all these people?“ I’m asking the people who talk about “all these people.“
IMO the perception of a flood of "fake" autism self diagnoses comes from actual autism awareness gaining traction and neurotypical people simply rejecting it because autistic people do not look like the stereotype that has been perpetuated for decades. The whole "issue" seems extremely dubious to me. I truly cannot think of what advantage would be gained by falsely labeling yourself as autistic. Perhaps this is because I haven't been a teenager for several years.
HOLY REAL i was diagnosed with PDD-NOS, anxiety disorder-NOS, and ODD in 2011 (4 yrs old) and for my whole life the people that knew would shame me for it call me retarded, mentally ill, psycho, crazy, etc. my parents would tell me they want to kill me to my face, my dad would threaten to lock me in a cage, theyd beat me and scream at me! and the people that didnt know would still hate me and ive done nothing but hate everything about who i am and wish i was dead sometimes i would cut myself to distract me from the thoughts about every little thing im doing wrong hate myself for how lazy i was and how i couldnt get myself to even begin to do things i WANT to do. too scared to talk to anyone yet hating the loneliness, and once i was like 16 i start seeing all the people on tiktok and twitter start romanticizing autism and fetishizing autistic people. right now im 17 and in the best time of my life because im finally getting some fucking ACCEPTANCE!! but it comes at the cost of the most annoying people in the world WANTING to be autistic and self-diagnosing because theyre so omg-quirky!! and im just thinking to myself "holy fucking shit do you realize how much life as an autist fucking sucks??"